


So We Beat On

by chaoticrandomness



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst and Romance, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 02:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4689350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticrandomness/pseuds/chaoticrandomness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romance, recovery from trauma, and putting one's life back together after the fall of the Soviet Union.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Sing Anyways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EvilMuffins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/gifts).



> You deserve this for being awesome. Enjoy!

“....kui kaunis oled sa! Ei leia mina iial teal, see suure….”

 

I’m greeted by his voice as I walk through his front door, and it’s really beautiful. Also, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that he owns a piano, considering everything that’s happened.

 

_I think I’m actually a little early, but I’ll just surprise him in his piano room anyways._

I hope he doesn’t mind me wandering through his house, but I’ve been here a few times after he moved back in to help him rearrange everything, so he probably won’t mind. The piano room’s probably on the first floor, and I notice the back of his head out of the corner of my eye in a small blue room off his kitchen.

 

“Sa oled mind ju sünnitand, ja üles kasvatand....”

 

“...sorry if I’m really early, Eduard…” I say, as I pop my head into the blue room as he abruptly grabs a book off the piano and begins to read it.

 

_You don’t have to hide anymore. Everything’s over now._

“Oh… it’s you, Ekaterina. Sorry.” he quips, as he sticks whatever he’s reading back on the piano and goes back to playing it.

 

“I keep telling you to call me Katia. You don’t have to be so formal around me.” I command as I take a seat on the piano bench, and the song he’s playing sounds really familiar.

 

_“Shche ne vmerla Ukrayina, ni slava, ni volya…”_

_He taught himself how to play this? For me?!_

“Thank you!” I exclaim, pulling him out of playing this song for me, and he’s doing incredibly well.

 

“...it’s good? I’ve been wanting to show this to you for a while… Katia…” he says, turning away from the piano and beginning to blush.

 

“It’s amazing, but could I play something for you?” I ask, for if he taught himself mine, I should teach myself something of his.

 

“...I’m perfectly fine with just being able to play.” he answers, but I still want to do something for him.

 

_I only know the old one, but I don’t want to sing that one to him. At least I can play part of the new one._

“Shche nam, brattya-ukrayinci, usmixnet'sya dolya….” he continues, as I attempt to replicate what he was playing on the piano when I got to his house.

 

_For all I know, we sound like the most awful pianists in existence, but to me, it’s beautiful._

I keep repeating the snippet of his anthem I know while he keeps sings mine, not knowing or caring about who could hear us as we remain in our little musical world, and I never want to leave.

 

_Let’s just stay here, okay? Teach me the full song, and I’ll sing it for you if you want._

“...you didn’t have to do anything for me, Katia.” he says as we finish the song and he stares at me like I’ve suddenly fallen out of heaven.

 

_You shouldn’t undersell yourself. You’re my equal now, and I love you._

“After you did something for me, it’s only fair that I play for you as well, Eduard.” I respond.

 

“....I only did that….” he says as he begins to blush heavily and inch closer towards me on the bench, his hand overlapping mine on the piano…

 

“I love you too.” I quip, as I pull him into an embrace, debating if I should kiss him or not. He tightens his grip on me, and the two of us are so tightly entwined in our little world of music, that it doesn’t matter what we do next.

 

_This is a beautiful blue room, filled with beautiful music and his books. I never helped him set up this one, and I don’t think he’s been to my house._

_I should take him there soon._

“So, I suppose you want me to teach you the rest of the anthem?” he asks, as we pull ourselves out of the embrace and he places a sheet of music on the piano.

 

“I’d love you to.” I answer, as we begin to sing.

 

 


	2. Chess And Slides

Victoria’s been living with me for the past two weeks, and at first I wasn’t quite sure why her government told me that she was here to recover from something when she showed up.

 

I mean, I was incredibly glad to finally be able to see my best friend again, but she was still the same stoic neat-freak who could kick everyone’s ass at swordfighting yet was the nicest person alive that I knew her as, yet within a week, I could see that there was something seriously wrong.

 

Firstly, she started locking her door whenever she was in either her room or a bathroom, and I thought I heard her crying and yelling in Russian once. Secondly, she had this habit of obsessively cleaning my house, and despite me telling her that she was my guest and not my maid, she didn’t seem to have realized it. Thirdly, I bought her a bunch of dresses that she might like, and was helping her into one when I noticed that she’d gone completely stiff and was muttering something under her breath that sounded like the words ‘don’t touch me’.

 

I wasn’t blind. I knew that something horrible had to have happened to her in that house, and I wanted to impale whomever did that to her. However, how could I get through to her and find some way to save her?

 

* * *

 

We’re playing chess today, and after being annihilated by Victoria in our first game, I decided to switch up the rules a bit. After all, this was my house, and I could play chess however I want, similarly-named Russians be damned.

 

I’m playing white, and move my e-pawn up three squares. I expect Victoria to snark at me on how you’re not supposed to do that before promptly moving it back, but her face is completely emotionless.

 

“Hello?! Is something wrong with this chessboard?” I exclaim, and she still doesn’t respond. I probably could’ve told her that I murdered her sisters, and she’d remain just as expressionless.

 

“Victoria, you know as well as I do that pawns _cannot_ move three squares and a chessboard cannot look like that. So why does it?” I ask, hoping to at least get some reaction out of her, even if it’s just her calling me an idiot.

 

“....actually it can, if this is the fifth move of the game instead of the first, for the first thing black moved was a knight.” she answers, clutching onto the edge of the chessboard for dear life, and this was not the answer I expected.

 

_Victoria, why are you acting like my mindless sycophant?! You don’t have to act like I’m going to torture you if you go against me!_

_I wanted a best friend and girlfriend, not a doll with no emotions and free will!_

“What’s gotten into you, Victoria?! They told me to help you, but I can’t help something that acts like a mindless doll!” I exclaim, as I impulsively yank her away from the table.

 

_The best way to help a traumatized person is not to traumatize them even further, you IDIOT!_

 

The pair of us collapse onto the floor, and she’s yelling something in what sounds like an insane mixture of Lithuanian and Russian, but all I can hear are the words ‘don’t hurt me’ again. I embrace her as strings of apologies fall out of my mouth, hoping that I can make up for what I did and that she won’t despise me for this mess….

 

_Please, listen to me. I’m sorry, and I’ll try to find a better way to help you. I love you, Victoria, and I want you to be happy for the rest of your life._

“....ah… where am I…. Felicia?” she asks, and she looks placid. Before I can answer, she quickly looks around the room, as if suddenly realizing that she’s been in my house the whole time.

 

“...of course I couldn’t have been there. I always lost, but I won this game.” she quips, and there’s a tiny hint of a smile on her face…

 

“So you learned how to be annihilate me from those two Russian guys with similar names?” I ask, a smile breaking out on my face as we sit down at the table. Strangely enough, her face is back to being expressionless again….

 

_I didn’t do something wrong, did I?_ _Victoria, I know nothing about chess, and you know that._

“Kasparov’s Azeri.” she answers, and I have no idea what this has to do with anything.

 

“And that matters because?” I ask, as I pick the chessboard off the floor and stick it back on the table, not caring that the white corner square is on the left.

 

“That’s like saying there’s no difference between someone who’s Russian and someone who’s Lithuanian. And as much as she wants to believe she has a hegemonic stranglehold on chess, she really doesn’t.” Victoria answers, her voice surprisingly bitter as she adjusts the chessboard and places a pawn on it.

 

_So, she doesn’t like being seen as Russian, which I assume extends to Soviet as well, and how did I not notice who did all that stuff to her?!_

 

_I’m such an idiot…._

 

“....so the one she hates is the one that actually has a personality and’ll be fondly remembered, just like Tal and Petrosian and Keres and all of the others…” Victoria rambles, and I have no clue what the hell she’s been talking about at all, but she’s finished setting up the chessboard.

 

“So, can you please teach me how to play chess so I can annihilate everyone who hurt you?” I blurt out. Surprisingly, she begins to smile, and takes my hand.

 

“The first thing you need to learn is how to exploit the weaknesses in your opponent’s positions.” she answers, as she sets up the pieces in a formation and tells me to move something.

 

We spend the rest of the day like this, and she still annihilates me. But she’s finally herself again. 

 

 


	3. Drowning My Sorrows

_Collapse was inevitable, Anastasia. No matter what you did, they would leave you._

It is Christmas 1991, and I have no friends. I am alone in a bar, attempting to drink myself into oblivion.

 

America has won the war, and the curtain has fallen. The others are celebrating the end of an era, while I am alone and friendless in this bar, hoping that I’m just dreaming.

 

No one mourns the loser in a war. The loser is always evil, always a cruel and abusive oppressor. The winner is always the heroine, the savior and liberator of millions, regardless of the truth.

 

_This is just a dream, Anastasia. You’ll wake up tomorrow and the flag flying above the Kremlin will be red and the wall will still be up and Gorbachev will have not resigned nor announced those plans that brought you to destruction, and you will still have friends._

I want this all to be a dream, but there is no way for that to be true. I grab another glass of alcohol and pour it down my throat, hoping that it’ll finally send me over the edge of oblivion, even though that’s impossible.

 

Even if the Union is gone, I still have the world’s largest landmass, but I don’t want to be alone. I want to keep living with my brothers and my girls and be happy and have friends.

 

I shouldn’t hate Gorbachev for what he did, but I do. His actions led towards all of them believing that they could leave me. I hate the men who made my girls leave me the most, the ones who exploited the freedom caused by his laws and turned them against me, causing my downfall.

_Vika, why did you leave me? I loved you, Vika, and you left, like all of the others… no, I shouldn’t blame you for what you did, for you were dragged into it by your sisters, and they manipulated you into going also with Helsinki-86 and that inane mineral war, didn’t they?_

_You were always so reasonable, Vika. I miss you… why didn’t you tell them that they were being unreasonable?_

There are flags on display on the television screen, and none of them are red. I grab another glass and pour its contents down my throat, mourning the loss of everyone I loved.

 

_Why did any of this ever happen? Why couldn’t they have appointed someone else as my leader, someone who wouldn’t bow down to inane demands and actually keep you all with me? I loved you all, and you repaid me by rebelling against me!_

I want to grab a knife and slice all of those false flags to bits, stain the sky with blue and black and red and white and yellow and green, for I loved them all, and they loved me back, didn’t they?

 

There’s a bottle of vodka sitting on the counter. The bartender’s head is turned, and I grab it, pouring all of it down my throat, but I’m just as sober as I was this morning, when I woke up to an empty house for the first time in years.

 

_I’ll pay for the bottle. I’m sorry, but I’ll find a way to make it up to you._

There’s a carol playing, but I hate music now. Ever since its use in a revolution, I can’t listen to a single song without feelings pangs of sorrow and betrayal.

_All of you…. Evelin, Rasia, especially… why?! What did I do to you!? I loved you and I befriended you and you repaid me with a fucking revolution! Why did you do something so irrational?!_

_Why did the incidents with the human chain and the songs and the barricades have to happen? I appointed a leader who was more than happy to indulge your whims, yet…._

 

_I loved you._

 

I loved everyone, back then, and they all left me. Including the people who I never thought would betray me and leave me alone, leave me in a house with absolutely no friends and that hellish general breathing down my neck at all times….

_Dima, you used to always promise that you’d protect me from the General. You told me that you would never leave me, and that I was your beloved little sister._

_When did it all go wrong? Why did you decided to go along with the madness, and host all those religious meetings and protests and that replica of the worst day of my life and fall in love?!_

_Why couldn’t you see that you were abandoning me to a life of perpetual loneliness and madness?! I loved you! You even had to take our other brother from us, didn’t you?!_

“....Anastasia?” someone asks, and I’d recognize that voice from a mile away. My little brother’s here, and he’s carrying a package wrapped in green, white, and red.

 

_The better to assert your independence to me, Nikolai?! You betrayed me too, and I loved you the most of them all!_

 

“Why are you spending Christmas alone in a bar with a lot of vodka?” he asks as he passes me the package.

 

There was a party for all of us today, to celebrate the end of the world. I couldn’t bring myself to join people celebrating my downfall, so I told him that I forgot.

 

“...anyways, I hope you like this.” he says as I open the package, for I have nothing better to do. There are a pair of scarves inside, one that looks exactly like my old flag and another that’s the same violet shade as his eyes.

 

_Why did he even come here? He could’ve stayed at the Christmas party rejoicing in my downfall, and yet he came here to give his older sister a present._

_Of all the others, he’s the only one who came back. He is the only one who hasn’t betrayed me._

“Thank you.” I say as I impulsively grab him and pull him into a kiss, for he is my younger brother and only friend and the man I love and so much more.

 

 


End file.
